


The Golden Moon

by Kitsune-Oden (crimsonherbarium)



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Bittersweet, Catharsis, Depressed Watanuki Kimihiro, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Intimacy, M/M, Moon, Porn With Plot, Power Bottom Watanuki Kimihiro, Red String of Fate, Regret, Riding, Service Top Doumeki Shizuka, Shopkeeper Watanuki Kimihiro, Smoking, Vulnerability, You know exactly what I'm talking about, and i'm here to feed you because unlike CLAMP i'm not a coward, first names, the scene we all deserved in Rou where Watanuki and Doumeki have sad bitter sex on the floor, xxxHoLic♦Rou-Related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:08:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29164710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/pseuds/Kitsune-Oden
Summary: Dōmeki was sowarm. Everywhere his skin touched Watanuki’s, heat bloomed. Warmth as a concept hadn’t existed for Watanuki for a long time. The shop was always cold inside, cut off from the sun as it was, and even when Maru and Moro invariably crawled into his bed at night, he was always freezing. They didn’t have souls, after all. There was nothing inside of them to generate it.
Relationships: Doumeki Shizuka/Watanuki Kimihiro
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43
Collections: Discord Community Archive





	The Golden Moon

“I thought I told you to call before coming over.”

Not that it mattered. Not that Watanuki couldn’t sense him the instant the soles of his shoes crossed the threshold that separated the shop from the material world.

“I did. Mokona answered.”

Dōmeki passed over the shopping bag—heavy purple canvas, printed with Yūko’s signature butterflies—which was laden down with Watanuki’s requested ingredients. Or Mokona’s, more accurately; getting to choose the menu himself would have been too great a luxury, even if he did run the shop himself now. 

Nodding approvingly, Watanuki sifted through the contents. Green peppers. Young bamboo shoots. Dōmeki had learned something from him over the years, at least. They were exactly the ones he would have chosen himself.

His fingers skimmed a small box at the bottom of the bag, and he pulled it out, frowning. Condoms. 

“I didn’t ask you to buy these.”

“They aren’t for you.” Dōmeki held out a hand in that infuriatingly blunt way of his, waiting for Watanuki to hand them over.

“Oh, no, no, this is too rich.” Watanuki snatched them back, laughing. “Don’t tell me, you’ve finally found yourself a girlfriend? Her standards must be low if she settled for a slob like you—”

Dōmeki stared at him levelly, outstretched palm still waiting.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Watanuki continued with a sigh and a shake of the head. “Girls always were tripping over each other to talk to you. Where did this one come from?”

“Idiot.”

“What—”

Watanuki’s flash of irritation was obliterated by the pure shock of Dōmeki grabbing him by the wrist. The space between them, so carefully maintained over the last decade, collapsed in an instant as Dōmeki closed the distance and pressed his lips forcefully to Watanuki’s.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Watanuki was sure he heard glass shattering.

This was all wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be him. It wasn’t supposed to be now. It wasn’t—

_It wasn’t supposed to be you._

Dōmeki was so _warm_. Everywhere his skin touched Watanuki’s, heat bloomed. Warmth as a concept hadn’t existed for Watanuki for a long time. The shop was always cold inside, cut off from the sun as it was, and even when Maru and Moro invariably crawled into his bed at night, he was always freezing. They didn’t have souls, after all. There was nothing inside of them to generate it.

Overwhelmed, Watanuki let out a hesitant, shuddering sigh.

Dōmeki’s expression was no different when he pulled away than it had been five minutes ago when he walked in the door. Watanuki had always hated that about him. How inscrutable he was. The feelings in Watanuki’s heart always bled through in his expression, no matter how he tried to suppress them. 

Yūko would have said that that was just the kind of person he was. Just as she would have said that this was just the kind of person Dōmeki was. 

Watanuki blinked against the faint fantom image of his own face overlaying his vision. Dōmeki’s right eye. Faintly, he remembered the warning that the two of them might share it more literally when one of them was experiencing strong emotions. It had always been him, in the past. But now—

“Maru? Moro?” he said hoarsely, figuring the two of them had to be somewhere nearby, eavesdropping.

“Yes!”  
“Yes!”

Watanuki smiled faintly. “Can the two of you go get started dusting the warehouse, please? Take Mokona with you.”

“Yes!”  
“Yes!”

The patter of little feet faded as the two of them skipped down the hallway. Dōmeki, for once, looked almost amused.

“Hmm.” Watanuki traced the line of his lips with a fingertip.

“What?”

“You look like Haruka when you do that.”

“Don’t tell me I resemble my grandfather at a time like this.”

“It’s the truth.” Watanuki chuckled. “To think the two of you—”

Dōmeki shut him up again, just as effectively as the first time, with a kiss. Watanuki didn’t freeze this time. It felt...it felt strangely normal. Normalcy was scarce for him these days. It was the nature of the beast that had swallowed him.

“You sent them away,” Dōmeki observed.

“I did.”

“Why?”

_“You’re_ the idiot, as usual.”

Watanuki abandoned his perch on the chaise to climb astride Dōmeki, who still knelt on the tatami floor.

“That won’t keep them busy for long, you know. They’re terrible at housework.”

Dōmeki snorted. 

“So if you’re not just talk—”

Dōmeki’s hands moved faster than Watanuki’s mouth. The kimono, precariously tied to begin with, slipped from Watanuki’s shoulders and puddled to the floor. Dōmeki’s tie was gone an instant later, and with Watanuki’s help the buttons of his shirt were easily undone. 

“I’ll press it for you later,” Watanuki muttered as he tossed the garment aside. 

“Sure.”

“Would it kill you to say thank you?”

Dōmeki kissed him again. Watanuki melted into it, drinking in the warmth of it, letting it pulse into him with every beat of Dōmeki’s heart. 

It wasn’t enough.

“I’ll press these too,” Watanuki said with a long-suffering sigh, palming Dōmeki’s cock through the fabric of his trousers. “They aren’t thick enough for the weather, anyway. You’ll wind up catching cold.”

Dōmeki made a noncommittal noise. 

Watanuki had to shift in order for the offending trousers to stop being a problem. He realized only faintly as Dōmeki stripped off the last of his clothing that he had never seen anywhere near this much of him before. He was _strong,_ stronger than Watanuki might have imagined. Dōmeki never needed to use his size to make a point. His face did it for him.

Dōmeki glanced at him sideways. “What?”

“You...hmm.”

Watanuki couldn’t help but reach out to touch. He only realized now that he had been wanting to. He couldn’t have said for how long. Dōmeki’s skin burned like coals under his fingertips. Was he always this warm, or was this simply a function of the purity of his aura? Watanuki had only recently become strong enough to see it. It radiated from Dōmeki faintly, when he squinted his eyes, in a similar wavelength to the light of the rising sun. Watanuki was moonlight, himself; pale and faded, a shadow of itself, a whisper or an echo disappearing with a sigh into endless night.

Dōmeki grunted as Watanuki’s fingertips skimmed from his chest, to his abs, to the jut of his hipbone through the surrounding muscle. His cock strained, flushed and glistening, against his stomach. Watanuki drank in the sight, the color of Dōmeki’s skin, reveling in the tangible proof that he had finally managed to force a reaction out of him. Funny that this was all it took, in the end. His own cock throbbed between his thighs, insistent.

“Bag.”

“What?” Watanuki glanced up distractedly. “—oh.”

A cursory dig through the bag turned up a little squeeze bottle of lube, as well. He passed it to Dōmeki, who broke the foil seal and squirted a generous amount on his fingers.

“Come here.”

_Make me,_ part of Watanuki wanted to respond, but he had already surrendered too much of himself to put up a front any longer. He straddled Dōmeki instead, settling slowly onto his hips, mismatched eyes meeting Dōmeki’s with a flicker of hesitation.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dōmeki said in that infuriatingly blunt way of his. 

Watanuki pursed his lips in irritation. “Part of me feels like I should.”

“Don’t.”

“I take it back,” Watanuki said with a sigh. “You’re nothing like Haruka.”

“Didn’t I ask you not to mention my grandfather?”

“And I asked you to buy usukuchi soy sauce. We don’t always get what we want.”

If Watanuki hadn’t known better, he might have thought Dōmeki was smiling.

“You never change, do you?”

_Wasn’t that the point?_ Watanuki thought to himself as he bent down, eyes half-closed, to kiss Dōmeki once more. He would never change, even as the world continued revolving past outside, as Kohane grew old, as Dōmeki went from student to teacher to priest. That was the promise he had made. That was the only wish of Yūko’s that had been within his power to grant.

Dōmeki’s aura flared, chasing the shadows away from his mind. Had he done that on purpose? Could he see more of Watanuki than just his face with that right eye?

Heat radiated from Dōmeki’s fingers despite the cool slickness of the lube. Watanuki gasped as those fingers found their mark, driving away his despair every bit as effectively and accurately as the bolts Dōmeki fired from his bow. They were warm inside him, strange and foreign but not unwelcome. A fire kindled inside Watanuki with every curl of his fingertips, sparks growing into a flame that licked ever higher, searching for more.

Watanuki bit back a moan, rocking back against Dōmeki’s hand, searching out friction. Wanting more of him, wanting his warmth, his touch, his strong hands gripping his waist. Wanting catharsis after years of near-misses and actions that spoke louder than any words possibly could have, on both sides.

“You…” Dōmeki’s voice was strained.

Watanuki bent down and kissed him once more, uncharacteristically soft and tender, tracing the sharp corner of Dōmeki’s jaw with his fingertips. Dōmeki’s fingers tensed inside him, and he hummed in satisfaction.

The bottle of lube had rolled away, and Dōmeki had to stretch to reach it when he pulled his fingers out.

“Condom,” Dōmeki said brusquely, and Watanuki rolled his eyes as he opened the box and tore one off the strip. 

“Honestly,” he griped, ripping the foil and pulling out the latex ring. “A little subtlety might serve you sometimes.”

Dōmeki only shrugged, holding out his hand expectantly. Watanuki sighed, handing over the condom, and shifted to give him room to put it on.

“You’re sure?” Dōmeki said, his eyes searching Watanuki’s face for any trace of hesitation. “This is what you want.”

Watanuki laughed at the absurdity of the question, but it sounded hollow even to him. He didn’t want anything for himself, really. Not anymore. It wasn’t within the power of the granter of wishes to also make them.

“I would have stopped you already if that weren’t the case,” he said hastily. That, at least, was true. His power grew every day that passed in the liminal realm of the shop. By now, it was very strong indeed. Strong enough to hold off even Dōmeki, though his golden aura still cut through the shadows surrounding Watanuki like a knife through butter.

“It’s alright,” he said, more quietly. “I’m sure.”

There was still concern in the hard line of Dōmeki’s brow, but it vanished when Watanuki kissed him again, more deeply this time, drinking him in. The slick slip of his tongue. The heat of his breath. It spread through Watanuki as Dōmeki’s sheathed cock, burning hot and hard as steel, pressed against him. He gasped, tipping his head back, as he sank onto it, a thrill of anticipation washing through him. This was real. This was one real, true thing, entirely separate from the deadening chill and dusty monotony of the shop’s confines.

And it was Dōmeki, exactly the wrong person—or at least, that was what he had spent most of his life thinking. There had been a time, undeniably, that the mere sight of his face made rage rise in Watanuki’s throat like bile, but that had been long ago. 

Yūko had once teased that they were destined for one another. Watanuki had taken it as a poor joke at the time, but as the years had passed, even he had to admit it was likely true. A thread bound the two of them, strong enough to survive the untold chaos and misfortune that had befallen them since. Now, a decade later, forced finally to accept the truth of that prediction, Watanuki didn’t feel the faintest trace of revulsion. Only gratitude, for the simple fact that he finally wasn’t alone. It didn’t matter that it was Dōmeki. Really, if he had ever taken the time to acknowledge it, Dōmeki was the only person it possibly could have been.

Dōmeki was quiet, his jaw set in a hard line, the grunt that forced its way from his lips the only interruption to his strained breathing. Dour as usual, even at a time like this. Only his right eye betrayed him; the phantom images that overlaid Watanuki’s vision grew stronger with each passing second until they were every bit as distinct and solid as what he could see from his own perspective. It was disorienting, at best. Watanuki reached up unconsciously to cover his right eye with one hand, though covering it did nothing to blunt the onslaught of imagery.

Dōmeki’s hand caught his wrist. “What’s wrong?”

Watanuki slowly dropped his hand, blinking. His single amber eye met Dōmeki’s matching ones, and he felt a faint flush rise to his face.

“Is this what it’s always like? For you, I mean?”

Dōmeki only nodded, reaching out with a flicker of hesitation to touch Watanuki’s face. His fingertips rested just below the eye they shared, so gently they were almost reverent. 

Watanuki shifted, coaxing Dōmeki with his fingers to sit up, so that he could bring him closer. So that he could press himself against the heat of him, wrap his arms around him like a binding charm, never let him go. Dōmeki held him there, forehead resting against Watanuki’s chest, grunting in response to the change in angle.

“It’s alright.” Watanuki smoothed a hand through Dōmeki’s hair, feeling the shadow of Yūko within himself as he did so. “All of this was hitsuzen, after all.”

The rhythm of their bodies meeting, simple and slow, was a comfort to Watanuki in more ways than one. It drew soft gasps from his lips, bled warmth into his fingertips, anchored him to this place, this time, in a way that even the magic that maintained the shop’s existence was unable to. Dōmeki, warm and pure. Strong and fearless and utterly undeserving of the hardships he had shouldered on Watanuki’s behalf.

Watanuki bit his lip, an unexpected pang of affection blooming in his chest. “Shizuka…”

Dōmeki froze, looking up at Watanuki with brows knit in confusion. “You’ve never called me that before.”

“Say mine.”

“Wata—”

“No.” Watanuki pressed a finger to Dōmeki’s lips, silencing him. “Not that one.”

“Kimi...hiro.”

Watanuki sighed, tightening his grip on Dōmeki as the two of them melted together, hopelessly entangled in one another. The rock of Dōmeki’s hips. The soft buzz of pleasure that slowly grew within Watanuki’s core. The all-encompassing warmth of Dōmeki, burning hotter everywhere their skin met. The strength of his arms, cradling Watanuki’s slender form so effortlessly. The acute loss of himself as a single entity as the two of them became something greater, something complete. They no longer shared just a single eye. It was everything, everything.

“Shizuka…”

“Kimihiro.”

“You…” Watanuki bit back his words, losing them to a shuddering sigh. It didn’t matter. None of it, nothing outside this moment mattered. The days passed like seasons, and the trees outside the shop would flower and fruit and wither innumerable times, and none of it—not a single moment—was more important than this one. The faint tinge of incense and pipe smoke still lingering in the air. The taste of Dōmeki on his tongue. The scratch of the tatami on his bare shins. Dōmeki’s pulse, beating strong and steady against Watanuki’s chest. An omen. An offering, stale and bitter, made years too late to change the course they traveled.

Dōmeki’s eyes, earnest and intense, bored holes into his own. Blood rushed to Watanuki’s face, the heat of it burning his skin, and though part of him wanted to hide, he found that he couldn’t. There were no longer any barriers between the two of them. The threat of fate had bound them inextricably. There was only Dōmeki, and the steady thudding of his heart against Watanuki’s skin, and the growing prickle of pleasure in Watanuki’s core, flaring like a coal with every ragged breath he took. 

Shizuka.

Endless sacrifice. Dōmeki had undoubtedly paid the price, in some ways even more severely than Watanuki had himself. Watanuki could feel it in the strained lines of him, in the angles of his face when he reached out to touch it with one hand, gasping and tipping his head back as the coal burned hotter. Dōmeki’s hands on his hips were stone, anchoring him to the present. Holding his heart to the white-hot tip of the poker that pressed against it, searing heat through him for the first time in a decade, reviving the parts of himself that had been shed and withered away to nothing. 

Watanuki _wanted._ He wanted Dōmeki more than he could remember wanting anything—if he could even remember what it _felt like_ to want anything, after the amount of intention he had put into forgetting himself. 

_Don’t disappear._

The words echoed across untold distance, mingling in a multitude of voices. A wish. A wish that had had a more profound effect on every instance of Watanuki’s life than any he could have made himself. Himawari. Yūko. Haruka. Syaoran. 

Dōmeki, his expression uncharacteristically serious, barking the words with such intensity that it sent a shock even though Watanuki’s exhausted and fading mind. _Don’t touch him!_

_Don’t disappear._

A trembling moan spilled from Watanuki’s lips, filtering its way in between the rasps of his labored breathing. The soft bristle of Dōmeki’s hair under his fingertips, stubble already prickling in at the corner of his jaw. The solid flex of his muscle under the skin. The tired lines that faintly creased the skin around his eyes. 

“Don’t disappear—”

Dōmeki’s voice, thrumming palpably through the thinning air between them, startling Watanuki with its suddenness. 

“—because I need you to stay...Kimihiro.”

The ember in Watanuki flared magnesium bright, consuming him completely. He cried out, shuddering, hands fisted against Dōmeki’s solid chest, as it burned through him. Only faintly did he register the sudden catch of Dōmeki’s breath, the tensing of his fingertips against the small of Watanuki’s back. The surge of emotion, crashing into him so strongly that for a moment the eye they shared was no longer his in any part, only Dōmeki’s. Even when Watanuki closed it, all he could see was his own face, flushed and somehow softer than usual, his lips parted as he fought to catch his breath. 

In the near distance came the sound of something tipping over and shattering. Watanuki sighed in resignation, already mentally running through an inventory of the things Mokona could possibly have broken.

Dōmeki’s lips burned hot against Watanuki’s as he leaned in to kiss him one final time before at last releasing his iron grip.

☽⚪☾

_Of course it was you._

Shrouded in silk, hair still damp from the bath, Watanuki sat on the engawa, blowing lazy tendrils of smoke up toward the golden swell of the moon. 

Dōmeki mirrored him, as he did more nights than not these days, nursing what was left of the sake salvaged from the bottle Maru and Moro had cracked earlier. Watanuki hummed faintly as he sipped from his own cup, letting the warmth of it wash over his tongue. The sake had been a gift, after all. It wouldn’t have done to let it go to waste.

Washed in the light of the moon, the subtlest of smiles playing across his lips, Dōmeki resembled Haruka so strongly that Watanuki almost thought he was in a dream. 

“What?” he grunted, upon noticing Watanuki’s lingering gaze, shattering that illusion thoroughly. 

Watanuki took a long drag on his pipe and sighed. 

“Dōmeki Shizuka...March third.”

“Hm?”

Watanuki pursed his lips, delicately setting aside the sake cup. “Yūko used to say that names have power. A name is everything for a person. It guides your fate and choices in ways that you may never be able to grasp.”

“My grandfather used to say something similar.”

Watanuki hummed tunelessly, studying the halo of light around the moon’s edges. It was brighter tonight than he had seen it in years. Not unlike himself, he realized with dawning clarity. The energy Dōmeki had lent him burned through him like a lightning strike, brightening his outline. Watanuki felt more solid tonight than he had in a very long time. 

“Birth dates are important, too. Knowing both…”

“Gives you power over a person.”

Watanuki nodded. “Your account is out of balance. The price you’ve paid is too large for the services rendered.”

Dōmeki glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m giving you mine,” Watanuki continued, tapping the stem of his pipe with one finger. “To balance the scales.”

“Yours?”

“Say it.”

“Watanuki Kimihiro. April first.”

Watanuki smiled again faintly. “Now we’re even.”

“That makes you an April fool—”

Watanuki grimaced, shooting Dōmeki a murderous glance. “Somehow I knew I was going to regret this.”

“Watanuki!” Mokona chirped, holding up an empty sake cup. “We need another bottle. More snacks, too!”

“Alright, alright.” He got to his feet, sighing. “Give me a few minutes…”

The golden light of the moon framed Dōmeki’s profile as Watanuki turned back to face him.

_It was always supposed to be you. Despite myself, I’m glad._

**Author's Note:**

> _Let's unite your wishes and my lies together  
>  And kiss to pledge eternity on a June night  
> And then, let's paint a golden moon in a night sky  
> Collecting only the light that I can  
> Collecting the light . . ._
> 
> _Even if there's no light in my future  
>  Even if, somewhere, someone's laughing at me  
> Even if your tomorrow twists into something ugly  
> Even if we're never able to regain our purity_
> 
> _Even if there's no golden moon shining in the night_
> 
> I've been listening to 黄金の月 over and over thinking about these two and my heart hurts. I loved xxxHolic as a tweenager, and re-experiencing as an adult has been such a delight. 12-year-old me had impeccable taste in manga but was far too repressed to pick up on the gay subtext. Fortunately, that's no longer the case. 
> 
> A little comfort for Watanuki was all I really wanted out of Rou, so I tried to create it here. I really hope you enjoyed the fic. Please consider leaving me a comment if you did!


End file.
